Karkus hulked alongside the slab, the wide sweep of his shoulders unmistakable even from above. But it wasn’t his presence that dominated the space. The whispers were gone; but in their place was a silence that seemed to suck the air into the shadows at the back of the hall. She stared into this soupy blackness and discerned a figure. There were no hairs on the back of her neck to stand up, but the feeling swept through her much the same.
‘You have something that belongs to me… Something that ails you… Come down and I will relieve you of it. All will be well for you then.’
His words floated up like silk ribbons – words meant to disarm and seduce her. And they almost succeeded. She started to drift down; wanting to be relieved and believing all would be well. But then she detected the malice woven into his silky voice and froze; the reality of the situation becoming clear. Re-joining her body most certainly meant death. But that wasn’t what bothered her.
The man with whom she had shared her long life was gone and she was teetering on the edge of a huge pit of grief. There might be life to be had if she ever climbed out, but she would always have her conscience to bear. Conscience, her uncle used to say, was the great modifier of life’s pleasures. It could harden a pillow, take flavour from food and leach colour from the day. Since his death she had killed a toruck, ingested a spirit demon and tore a leecher into a thousand pieces. Worst of all she was responsible for the lynch mob that killed him. Her conscience was irredeemably stained and death would be a welcome escape.
But she hesitated because she didn’t think Izle would kill her right away. She suspected that once he relieved her of the shadow he would punish her for taking it. And then he would study her. He knew about Absence and would keep her alive until his interest was satisfied.
‘Come child. Relinquish your burden and let the light back into your heart.’
She decided that was exactly what she was going to do. As soon as he began to draw the shadow she planned to retreat into the deepest memories of her heart – to the woods outside the hideout where she would be reunited with her uncle and her old friends again. And there she would hide; cut off from physical sensation and numb to any punishment or torture he cared to inflict. She would reside there in a nostalgic absence - until her body gave up and she passed away.
Della drifted down and slipped back into her body for what she hoped was the last time. She didn’t see Izle rush from the shadows; but felt his fingers pressing into her face the moment she reconnected. But she was expecting this and was already retreating into her mind as his scour reached into her. As she sank down the shadow rose from its hiding place and passed through her like a black bubble. It connected with Izle’s scour and she experienced a moment of sheer bliss when he drew it out and her soul ran pure.
His scour withdrew momentarily, plunging back into her with terrifying vigour. Izle was reunited with his shadow - a man remade, burning with rekindled power. His dreadful suction pursued her deeper and deeper and soon her imagination fashioned it into a huge grasping hand. When his fingers fastened on her she sped up, slipping his grip with a series of sharp twists and turns. But in the process she began to panic and when at last she arrived in the deepest part of her mind, she dissolved not into the refuge of her heart, but into a dark memory instead – the last place she would have chosen to hide.
Twenty-Five to One
Laurena walked along a dirt track, feet squelching in her boots and damp clothes clinging to her like a second skin. She had risen early that morning – throwing herself into her chores so she could spend more time with her best friend Anilie. Only Anilie had forgotten to do the same and was still in bed when she went knocking. Her mother let her out to play, but just as they found the rope swing the older boys told them about, she was called in to her neglected chores. Laurena had been bitterly disappointed, but the sun was high and now she was more than happy to saunter through the pastures with its warm apron on her back. If her mother was in the kitchen when she got home, she could help her make pastry or mix batter for a cake. And if she wasn’t needed; she would find her father and help him to chop wood.
She jumped a stile and started across a field of cows, who lifted their heads to stare. She stuck her tongue out at the nearest one and was skipping away when a breeze started up. It began so suddenly she turned in reflex; expecting to see what was causing it. She pressed on, but looked around again before taking a dozen paces. Something was wrong with the breeze. It wasn’t waxing and waning as expected, but strengthening gradually and she was soon leaning back to avoid being blown over; holding her hair to keep it out of her face. Her clothes started to flap and a chill rose in her damp legs. What had begun as a gentle breeze a few seconds ago was now a storm force wind and she was beginning to lose her feet; crossing the field in long disjointed strides. She went up on tiptoes and took off – blown into the hawthorn hedgerow on the far side of the field. Its defences yielded, bending and snapping with the force of her impact, its thorny projections ripping her shirt and scratching her skin. And still the wind strengthened as though it meant to mince her in the hawthorn’s woody lattice. She screamed, but the sound was ripped away before it reached her ears. A strange charge came into the air and a thunderless lightning streaked the sky. But it was like no lightning she had ever seen. It was a luminous, reptilian green; a colour she would loathe for the rest of her life.
The wind ceased and the hawthorn sprang back. She pulled free, tearing her clothes and scratching her face. Several cows had been blown into the hedgerow either side of her and some had crashed through the perimeter fence into the next field. Most were picking themselves up, but some were clearly injured; mooing in distress as they laid on their side. She saw her neighbour’s barn and froze. Its whole roof had been blown off; one of its walls had collapsed and a large cloud of straw was settling on the wreckage. She thought of her parents and started to run.
She jumped over another stile and raced across a meadow. There was a stretch of woodland blocking her view of the city and all that was visible was the clock tower. Its big iron hands were set at twenty-five to one, but as she ran on the clock face became obscured by rising smoke. Closer still, there was screaming and shouting. At first she assumed they were the cries of the injured and those coming to their aid, but then she heard a few notes that chilled her blood – sounds more suggestive of slaughter than the aftermath of a strong wind.
Her home was in a glade just outside Joebel, at the edge of a small wood. She arrived at a sprint, but drew up when she saw what had become of it. A large pine tree was lying across the house. The building had collapsed under its weight and two walls had blown out; spewing broken furniture across the grass. Her bed was sticking out of the wreckage and her bookcase was resting on top – books and drawings laid out on the mattress as if on display for some crazy house sale.
Her father was knelt out front and her mother was cradled in his lap.
She went to them in slow dreamy steps. The cries from the city were louder here, but she didn’t hear them. All she heard now were his dreadful sobs. She came before him and stopped. He didn’t look up, and gave no sign he even knew she was there. His head was hanging and his shoulders jerking as he rocked her mother’s floppy head in the crook of his elbow. Her long chestnut hair hung over his forearm; soaking in an expanding pool of blood. Blue eyes looked out of her loose face, but they no longer sparkled with maternal love. They were cold and lifeless and they speared her with a fixed, unseeing gaze.
‘Mum?’
She screamed - a long chilling note that brought his head up with a jerk. He also wore a face she didn’t recognise. His expression was all emotion and through his streaming eyes she was able to see his bleeding heart. His mouth worked, but he could find no words for her and in the end he just buried his face in her mother’s chest.
She looked at them, unable to process what she was seeing – the levers of her mind suddenly jammed and rusted over. But then, as though surfacing from an underwater swim, she
tuned into the sounds that were now all around her. The screams and shouts were closer, accompanied by clashing metal and splintering wood. She was incapacitated with shock and couldn’t respond, but then a single word of warning blasted through the trees and it struck her father like a slap.
‘Uhuru!’
His looked up, his face remoulded with fear. ‘They’ve found us!’ he said, scanning the woods. ‘We’ve got to get you safe.’ He looked down at her mother and back toward the city. Then with great reluctance he laid her down, closed her eyes and kissed her forehead. He froze in place, looking at her for the last time. Then after what seemed like an eternity he sprang up, grabbed her hand and pulled her away. ‘Come on now. As quick as you can.’
But she pulled free. She wasn’t ready to go yet.
She went back, reached into her mother’s shirt and drew her necklace out. It was a simple thing: a set of wooden animals her father carved and threaded with string; a courtship gift her mother never took off. She removed it under his grieving eye; fingers trembling as she picked the knot. Sounds of fighting were becoming louder, but he made no attempt to hurry her. When it finally slipped free, she bundled it into a fist and kissed her cheek. Then she took his outstretched hand and raced away with him.
They were almost out of the glade when a guttural cry went up behind them. ‘Faster now!’ he gasped, almost pulling her off her feet. They tore around a bend and cut directly into the woods. ‘We’ve gotta get to Uncle Jarl’s as quick as we can… There’s a shortcut over the river.’
Washed Up Tree Root
They ran from the woods and sprinted across a wide strip of grassland to get to the river. But after a few bounding steps her eyes were drawn to the sky. Its blue expanse had taken on the texture of cloth and something was pressing through from the other side. It resolved into a huge hooded face with blind eyes and she got the impression it was searching the land. A new dread plumed in her chest and forgetting the threat behind her, she began pulling her father back to the trees.
‘What are you doing?’ he yelled, yanking her on. ‘We can’t hide. We’ve got to keep moving.’
As she lurched forward the scenery started to blur and his handhold began to stretch away, as if her whole arm was elongating. Her footfalls lightened and she was soon rising from the pasture and pedalling the air. She looked up, knowing the face was drawing her and realising she was dreaming. She had retreated into her memory to hide from Izle, but he had found her there. The face in the sky was a representation of his scour and he was trying to draw her out. It was working too. The dreamscape in which she was hiding was sliding away like a silk sheet and in a few seconds it would slip off completely.
She started to panic and saw this was accelerating her detachment and speeding her ascent. The face was growing bigger and its blind cloth eyes were focusing on her. When a huge hand reached out, she forced herself to relax, using the skills of Absence to fall back into the dream. She focussed on the distant sensation of her running feet and her father’s grip at the other end of her elongated arm. There were several minutes when nothing changed – when the power of her imagination matched his draw. But then the ground firmed up under her boots and her arm snapped back to its normal length. When she opened her eyes she was scrambling down a river bank - the face in the sky and the knowledge she was dreaming, instantly forgotten.
Her father splashed into the pebbly shallows and helped her down. They waded towards a cluster of rocks that offered an easy climb up the far bank; but after a dozen sloshing steps they froze. Coming around the bend was a monstrous snake, pushing a wave ahead of it. Its endless body was at least six foot across and its head was crowned by a corona of warty horns. Scales rippled like overlapping shields and a luminous green mist rose from their black joints. As it crunched and clicked over loose stones it fixed them with lidless eyes and flicked out a glistening forked tongue.
A rider was hunched behind the central horns. His face was an abscess and his eyes, pockets of darkest night. He extended an arm with splayed fingers, generating a crackle of air that lifted the water in a fine spray. An invisible force enveloped them, fixing them like posts and allowing them only the freedom to draw breath and move their eyes.
The snake stopped twenty yards upriver, but its bow wave broke around them and splashed up on their chests. The smell hit them next and it was the stink of a corpse, rotting in a tidal pool. The rider swept his hand over the snake and it froze in place. He slid off its back and splashed down. He was tall; over a foot taller than her father, but his body looked unnaturally stretched – like an afternoon shadow come to life. His uncovered flesh was the colour and texture of fried egg white and his tattered clothing was as black as his eyes – a fabric that lacked any crease or fold, giving the impression those parts of him were missing. When he spoke his words scraped out of his throat; like clawed animals emerging from a rocky tunnel.
‘Where is the Creator Stone?’ he asked her father, waving a hand to return the use of his vocal chords. She glimpsed a shard of green gemstone buried in his palm and realised this was the source of his power.
‘Destroyed.’
The snake rider grabbed him by the throat and threw him onto the rocks. He landed with a sharp cry and a crack of bones and rolled onto his side, face screwed up in a mask of agony. She started over to help him; or at least she thought she did. For the magic permitted no movement and her response occurred only in her mind.
The gangly rider sloshed through the water and lifted him by his neck. ‘I know it’s close. Tell me where it is?’
‘I told you,’ he replied through his strangulated throat. ‘Destroyed!’ He was fully released from his paralysis now and stood on tiptoes - one hand gripping the rider’s wrist and the other holding his side.
‘Watch closely,’ said the rider, turning to one of the overhanging trees. He reached towards it and curled his fingers into a fist. As they came together the tree began to wilt - its branches shrivelling and blackening; its foliage drying up and falling like ash. The spectacle was accompanied by a high pitched creaking that gave the impression the tree was screaming, and when he was done it hung over the river like a withered claw. ‘Tell me where it is or you’ll suffer the same,’ he said dropping him onto the rocks again.
‘Never!’ he replied, spitting a clot of blood at his knees. He was repaid instantly. The rider lifted an arm; there was a hum in the air and her father began to scream. It was the worst noise she had ever heard - the worst she would hear in all her long years. She would have shut her eyes and covered her ears, but she was still paralysed and all she could do was angle her gaze away. Not far enough though; for she could still see him suffering in the unfocussed corner of her eye. A single tear broke through the magic, streaking down her cheek and dripping of her chin.
‘Look at your arm and see what has become of it,’ said the snake rider as he writhed in agony. ‘Tell me where the Creator Stone is or I’ll shrivel your child; sicken her limbs one by one and twist her into a deformity you wouldn’t recognise. What’s more I’ll fix your unblinking eyes on her transformation so you can see why she screams.’ Her father released a horrible pleading cry. ‘Where is it! Tell me and spare her.’
But he said nothing more. He closed his eyes and flopped on the rocks instead.
‘Very well. You’ve made your choice.’ The rider used his magic to turn his head towards her and open his eyes – so wide she saw all of their whites. Then he lifted an arm and spread his bony fingers. The air hummed and crackled, but before he could strike her with his wilting magic, a surge of light shot out of her father and hammered into him. His jaw exploded and he spun away, arms flailing and his magic deflected into a patch of river. But she wasn’t spared. The water turned green and as it ran around her right leg she felt something that wasn’t liquid soaking through her skin and into her bones.
The snake rider staggered backwards, grabbing his ruined face and blowing green gas. A second blast of light lifted him from the river
and impaled him on the splintered end of a broken branch. He grabbed at the protruding wood as if trying to pull free, but then his arms dropped and he went limp.
Her father appeared, overlaying the snake rider with his transparency. She had seen him in Absence many times, but had never seen him strike anyone before. Interaction with the material world they referred to as influence; and he had taught her to avoid it at all costs.
‘Are you alright?’ he asked, looking at the green water running around her leg. But she was still paralysed and could neither test her leg or open her mouth to answer him. When he looked into her face again he saw her eyes widen in alarm. He whirled around; but too late. The rider had lifted his arm and now there was a vicious crackle of the air that warped her father’s abandoned body all at once; transforming him into something that resembled a washed up tree root. His ghost blinked out of existence and the snake rider sagged once more; never to move again.
She stood rigid, staring at the place where he had disappeared, struck now by a blossoming grief her paralysed body was unable to act upon. There had been no time to register the loss of her mother, but she felt the loss of them both now and for the next few minutes it scooped her out, transforming her into a hollow statue.
It was only when the snake flicked its tongue out that she snapped back to reality. She looked at the snake and the snake looked at her. Then she blinked and felt the rawness of her dry eyes. They had both been frozen by the rider’s magic and it was beginning to lose its hold on them. A few seconds later she could move her tongue and soon after turn her head. She was thawing from the top down and when her chest and shoulders were released she began shaking with fear and grief.
Absence_Mist and Shadow Page 19